


One Step Sideways

by FictionPenned



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Accidental Time Travel, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 08:16:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27670093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FictionPenned/pseuds/FictionPenned
Summary: Wanda feels as though she has accidentally slipped into another world.One step sideways -- one normal, typically inconsequential action -- and the heat of battle suddenly falls away. Without warning, without reason, there are no longer friends and enemies fighting and yelling and living and dying in the space around her. The sun is higher in the sky. The air no longer tastes of smoke. The quiet hum of gnats and mosquitos leaves her ears ringing.She pivots on a single foot, red coattails flying, convinced that an unseen enemy will come racing out of the nothingness at her, that she will be struck down by the illusion of empty air.Written for the Time Oops Flash Exchange
Comments: 1
Kudos: 9
Collections: Time Oops Exchange 2020





	One Step Sideways

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Huntress79](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Huntress79/gifts).



Wanda feels as though she has accidentally slipped into another world. 

One step sideways -- one normal, typically inconsequential action -- and the heat of battle suddenly falls away. Without warning, without reason, there are no longer friends and enemies fighting and yelling and living and dying in the space around her. The sun is higher in the sky. The air no longer tastes of smoke. The quiet hum of gnats and mosquitos leaves her ears ringing. 

She pivots on a single foot, red coattails flying, convinced that an unseen enemy will come racing out of the nothingness at her, that she will be struck down by the illusion of empty air. Her fingers glow with power, ready to hurl it at the next target to become available. 

Surely, this must be a trick. It is a delusion. Someone has tricked her mind in the way that she can trick others. It's a dream state, pulled from her memories. This is not real. 

Her breath rips and tears on the ragged edges of her throat as she awaits the seemingly inevitable blow -- heartbeat frantic, chest heaving -- but nothing happens. 

There is just herself and the strange emptiness of a place seemingly untouched by the war that she had just seen, just smelt, just touched. 

Wanda tries to retrace her steps, running in the direction from whence she came in the vague and desperate hope of reversing whatever just happened, but she overshoots the moment. 

There is smoke in her eyes and her hair and her throat. She trips over a fallen body, and she scrambles to see its face, her gloved hands scrabbling against dirt and stone and skin. 

_ Friend or enemy? _

She breathes a sigh of relief when its face is that of an enemy. 

Though she is closer to the moment from whence she has come, the moment when she stepped sideways and lost her grip on the world, she has missed it slightly. 

The relative quiet gives that away. 

Through the smoke, she can see only the lines of the fallen. No heroes fighting for their lives. No clash of metal on metal. No familiar buzz of weapons charging their missiles. 

The battle is over, the victors have gone, and she is alone. 

Wanda stands, and with a deep, steeling breath, she steps backwards. 

At first, nothing happens. 

She takes one more step. 

The smoke lingers -- fresh and acrid and stinging. Noise fills her ears and her mind, and it has never been more comforting. There are enemies at her front, but there are friends at her back. She's back in the present. Back where she belongs.

"You vanished," someone comments in her earpiece, voice alight with the sparking crackle of static. 

Energy crackles from Wanda's fingertips as she takes down a wave of fighters. One falls facedown near her feet, and she realizes that it must be the same body that she tripped over mere moments ago...

_ … in a moment still to come _. 

She inhales, darts to a sheltered alcove, and musters a nervous reply, dreading and anticipating the responses in equal measure.

"Have any of you ever time travelled?" 


End file.
